Stories

Sprint offers free year of service for switching carriers

AP

Sprint today launched a new promotion offering a full year of free unlimited service to customers willing to switch to the carrier and bring their own device — a move that the Verge said "seems like the ultimate Hail Mary throw of desperation."

Desperate or savvy? Wells Fargo senior analyst Jennifer Fritzsche doesn't see the move as a race to the bottom or a desperate ploy to add subscribers. Sprint is testing an end-to-end digital offer and consumers' receptivity to keeping their devices, which could lead to longer term financial benefits, she said in an analyst note.

The backstory: The wireless business has been increasingly competitive over the last couple of years, with both AT&T and Verizon bringing back unlimited data plans amid pressure from T-Mobile and Sprint. While traditional phone subsidies have gone away, companies have been willing to fork over cash to lure customers from rival networks. A year of free service is a novel twist, though many non-Sprint customers will need a new phone to work on their network. Offering free unlimited service also shows Sprint's confidence that its airwave holdings can support a slew of new bandwidth-hungry customers.

Merger prep? Some see the announcement as proof that a merger announcement with T-Mobile is not imminent, but Fritzsche disagrees. "With this offer, Sprint is laying the groundwork as to how it can offer new and unique offers to the consumer," she wrote. "Our sense is a case will be made as to why such unique offerings can only get stronger and more customer friendly if a new carrier has greater scale."

Self-driving lab head urges freeze after "nightmare" fatality

Uber self-driving car in Pittsburgh. Photo: Jeff Swensen / Getty

Carmakers and technology companies should freeze their race to field autonomous vehicles because "clearly the technology is not where it needs to be," said Raj Rajkumar, head of Carnegie Mellon University's leading self-driving laboratory.

What he said: Speaking a few hours after a self-driven vehicle ran over and killed a pedestrian in Arizona, Rajkumar said, "This isn't like a bug with your phone. People can get killed. Companies need to take a deep breath. The technology is not there yet. We need to keep people in the loop."

Why it matters: Virtually every major car company on theplanet, in addition to numerous startups and tech companies, are doing live testing of self-driving vehicles — and pushing policy officials to allow them to do so.

But Rajkumar said that ordinary people in addition to automakers and tech companies have developed far too much trust in self-driving technology simply because the cars have driven hundreds of thousands of miles with only one fatality before this — a Tesla driver who slammed into the side of a truck last year.

Quote "This is the nightmare all of us working in this domain always worried about."

Trump, Sessions & GOP lawmakers to meet about sanctuary cities

The White House is hosting a roundtable on sanctuary cities Tuesday afternoon with the President, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen of the Department of Homeland Security, Republican lawmakers and others, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Conservatives tried to use this week’s massive government spending bill to cut federal funds from sanctuary cities, but they failed, according to sources involved in the process. But Trump officials want to use Tuesday’s event to highlight the issue and put pressure on cities that don't comply with federal immigration law enforcement.

The roundtable guest list:

Donald Trump

Mike Pence

John Kelly

Stephen Miller

Attorney General Jeff Sessions

DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen

ICE acting Director Tom Homan

Gene Hamilton, Counselor to the Attorney General

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX)

Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ)

Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC)

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)

Texas AG Ken Paxton (R-TX)

Arkansas AG Leslie Rutledge

Members of the law enforcement community

Big picture: The Department of Justice is already suing the state of California for the state’s “radical” sanctuary cities law. And In his speech on Monday, President Trump blamed sanctuary cities for releasing criminals, drug dealers and gang members back into society, claiming that "ending sanctuary cities is crucial to stopping the drug addiction crisis."

Shortly after, Sessions announced that the DOJ had filed a lawsuit against California, and personally attacked Shaaf in his speech, saying she endangered the lives of law enforcement to promote her "radical open borders agenda."